Cadence’s CFD suite; cloud-based DFM analysis; Applied Material innovations; Arm IoT solutions; ECU virtualization; paper-thin loudspeakers

As we saw last week in our special report on EDA startups, deep learning acceleration startups are more numerous and are getting much more funding. It’s therefore interesting to read the following comment by processor analyst Linley Gwennap: “Well-funded startups, including several unicorns, have been unable to demonstrate any advantage over Nvidia’s Ampere products, much less the upcoming Hopper generation. (…) Cerebras, Groq, and SambaNova, along with leading Chinese startups Enflame and Iluvatar, are in production but have published few or no benchmarks, probably owing to some combination of deficient hardware and unoptimized software. Of the best-funded AI-chip startups, only Graphcore has provided official MLPerf results, falling well short of Ampere in per-chip performance and power efficiency.” Let’s now move to this week’s news round-up, catching up on some of the updates from the last twenty days or so.

Cadence launches a computational fluid dynamics software suite

Cadence has recently introduced its Fidelity CFD Software, a suite of computational fluid dynamics solutions for multiple markets, including automotive, turbomachinery, marine, aerospace and others. The suite builds upon the expertise and technology that Cadence has gained from the Numeca and Pointwise acquisitions.

KLA introduces a cloud-based PCB DFM analysis solution

KLA has announced the launch of Frontline Cloud Services, a software solution that accelerates design-for-manufacturability analysis for complex printed circuit boards, aiming to reduce the amount of time needed to run analyses. According to the company, one KLA customer producing high-density interconnect PCBs saw DFM analysis time shorten from 75 hours (when running on premises) to 30 minutes with Frontline Cloud Services.

Synopsys unveils new neural processing unit IP

Synopsys has announced its new neural processing unit IP, the DesignWare ARC NPX6 and NPX6FS. According to the company, the ARC NPX6 NPU IP delivers, in a single instance, up to 250 TOPS at 1.3 GHz on 5nm processes in worst-case conditions, or up to 440 TOPS by using new sparsity features. The design integrates hardware and software connectivity features that enable implementation of multiple NPU instances to achieve up to 3,500 TOPS of performance on a single SoC. Synopsys has also introduced the new DesignWare ARC MetaWare MX Development Toolkit, a compilation environment with automatic neural network algorithm partitioning to maximize resource utilization.

Applied Material’s innovations for 2D scaling and GAA transistors

Applied Material has recently introduced several innovations to enable further 2D scaling and the fabrication of gate-all-around transistors. As for 2D EUV scaling, the new solutions include a CVD (chemical vapor deposition) alternative to spin-on patterning films, helping chipmakers tune the EUV hardmask layers for specific thicknesses and etch resiliency so they can achieve near-perfect EUV pattern transfer uniformity across the entire wafer. Innovations for GAA fabrication include a system that reduces equivalent oxide thickness by 1.5 angstroms, enabling designers to increase performance with no increase in gate leakage or keep performance constant and reduce gate leakage by more than 10X. It integrates atomic layer deposition, thermal steps, plasma treatment steps and metrology in a single, high-vacuum system. Additional details about Applied’s logic scaling solutions have been provided at the company’s “New Ways to Shrink” Master Class (presentation slides and remarks are available online).

Arm expands its IoT solutions offering

Arm is expanding its “Total Solutions for IoT” program with the addition of two specific use cases: the “Arm Total Solution for Cloud Native Edge Devices”, designed for Cortex-A and based on Corstone-1000; and the “Total Solution for Voice Recognition”, based on the Corstone-310 subsystem. Arm has also announced the Cortex-M85, the highest performance Cortex-M processor to date, offering multiple security features including Arm TrustZone technology. The company has also expanded its virtual hardware range – designed to enable software development in advance of silicon – with the addition of several new virtual devices including the new Corstone designs as well as seven Cortex-M processors ranging from Cortex-M0 to Cortex-M33. Arm is further expanding the library with third party hardware from partners.

Renesas enables car’s ECUs virtualization

Renesas has announced an integrated automotive ECU Virtualization Platform that enables designers to integrate multiple applications into a single ECU (Electronic Control Unit), ensuring that applications are safely and securely separated from each other to avoid interference. The solution enables customers to adopt new electrical-electronic architectures using MCU-based “zone ECUs” supporting multiple logical ECUs on one physical ECU. The platform combines Renesas’ RH850/U2x MCUs together with Etas’ RTA-HVR software, a hypervisor designed for microcontrollers with hardware virtualization support.

Lithium iron phosphate batteries gaining traction

According to a Reuters report, lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries for electric vehicles are starting to gain traction also in the Western world. Nearly half of the Tesla cars produced in the first quarter were reportedly equipped with this type of battery – instead of the nickel-and-cobalt based cells. More than a dozen companies are considering establishing factories for LFP batteries and components in the United States and Europe over the next three years, according to Reuters. LFP batteries are already popular in China.

Siemens’ SynthAI generates AI training images from CAD data

Siemens’ SynthAI solution promises to slash training cost and time for AI-based industrial vision systems. Rather than waiting for preproduction parts to be ready or using complex processes to generate synthetic data, machine vision specialists only need to provide 3D CAD data of the parts. SynthAI will then automatically generate thousands of randomized annotated synthetic images within minutes, without the specialist knowledge typically required.

A paper-thin loudspeaker

MIT researchers have developed a paper-thin loudspeaker based on an active piezoelectric layer embossed with an array of microscale domes. The low-power, cheap device can generate 86 dB sound pressure level at 30-cm distance with 25-V (RMS) excitation at 10 kHz, regardless of the rigid surface on which it is bonded. A working sample can be seen in this video.

Acquisitions

Ansys has signed a definitive agreement to acquire cloud simulation provider OnScale (Redwood City, CA). Once integrated into Ansys’ existing cloud portfolio, this technology acquisition will help provide a cloud-native, web-based user interface for device-independent access to Ansys’ array of simulation technologies.

Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn) has acquired arQana Taiwan and arQana Belgium. Activities have been merged with AchernarTek (USA), 100% owned by Foxconn to foster the growth of a global RF semiconductor component supplier. The new organization has been rebranded as “iCana”.

Upcoming events

The Spring RISC-V Week will take place May 3-5 in Paris, France.

Siemens’ Realize Live America is scheduled for May 9-12 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Intel Vision will take place May 10-11 in Grapevine, Texas.

Embedded Vision Summit will take place May 16-19 in Santa Clara, CA.

A metaverse market map

To finish with, here is a map compiled by market intelligence firm CB Insights’ listing the companies currently involved in the development of metaverse-related technology.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 28th, 2022 at 4:45 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.